In recent years, known electric connectors having numerous terminals are being used in the field of automobiles and are becoming more advanced. With an electric connector having numerous terminals, a large force is required to mate together connectors and release the connection. For this reason, a known lever-type connector having a lever is used to assist the mating with and release from a mating connector (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-272046).
In the known lever-type connector, the lever is rotated from a mating start position to a mating completion position to complete mating with the mating connector. The known lever-type connector is provided with a lock that hinders rotation of the lever from the mating completion position toward the mating start position.
As described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-272046, the lock may be provided to a wire cover covering a wire connected to a contact, as shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B. A wire cover 40 is mounted on a housing of the known lever-type connector. A wire 2 is drawn from one end side of the wire cover 40, which is provided with a lever 50 assisting in mating with a mating connector 70 and a lock 60 that engages the lever 50 once the known lever-type connector is positioned in the mating completion position. The lock 60 includes a spring section 61, and an engaging section 62 and a release projection 63 each connected to the spring section 61. The lever 50 has a catch 51 to be engaged with the engaging section 62 of the lock 60.
When the lever 50 is rotated toward the mating completion position at the time of mating with the mating connector, the catch 51 pushes the engaging section 62 downward so that the spring section 61 deflects. When the lever 50 is further rotated, the catch 51 goes over the engaging section 62. At this moment, the spring section 61 resiliently deflects backward. A clicking sound and a physical touch are realized by the operator when the engaging section 62 abuts on the catch 51, and thereby completion of connection with the mating connector can be confirmed.
In the known lever-type connector as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-272046, when the lever is rotated to the mating completion position, the engaging section 62 extending from the spring section 61 and the spring section 61 may become pressed with a finger F as shown in FIG. 5B depending on the position of the finger of the hand when the lever is operated. As a result, the finger F may cause the spring section 61 to maintain deflection without reticently deflecting backward to it resting position. Therefore, recovery of the spring section 61 is inhibited, and the operator may not realize the sound or a touch that indicates completion of mating when the engaging section 62 abuts on the catch 51, and the completion of mating the connectors may not be cannot be confirmed.
Therefore, it has to be confirmed that the lever cannot be rotated to a mating start position side, or a redoing operation is required such that the release projection 63 is pushed downward to release locking to once return the lever to the mating start position side and then again the lever is rotated to the mating completion position, thereby degrading operability.